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Reading The Pictures is dedicated to the analysis of news photos and media images.

January 10, 2014

Chris Christie, Bridget Kelly and the Bridge Scandal: If the Photos Are Just Slighty More Complex

“I have not had any conversation with Bridget Kelly since the e-mail came out,” Christie, 51, told reporters yesterday. “She was not given the opportunity to explain to me why she lied because it was so obvious that she had.”

— Bloomberg.com

Certainly, something is rotten in Denmark.

Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff pulls this dastardly deed and he doesn’t even care to ask her why? If Maddow’s alternative explanation was compelling, it’s because yesterday was mostly notable for establishing Christie’s ability to play the violin. The problem with the Governor’s apology and protracted narrative Thursday is that he made himself tooinnocent. If Christie’s true character was hardly evident on live TV, it felt a lot more syntonic in these Getty wire photos. What we see is Christie doing his contrition march to Ft. Lee to apologize to the Mayor. Beyond the surface, however, what the photo actually documents is Christie’s vehemence and defiance. He was asked not to come and he came anyway. There’s penance, and — unbuttoning the jacket — what you’re going to do anyway.

And then, these Getty archive photos featuring the Governor and his banished aide from the scene of a fire in Seaside Heights last September are also circulating. I’m not prepared to say that the darkness and the hard edges necessary to explain the vindictiveness at the center of the Bridget bridge story are present in these shots. But there’s enough sense of fealty, and a gutting it out together, to imagine, at least, that the aide, now infamous for meting out punishment (but supposedly, a choir girl, too), would have been acting as a proxy.

(photos 1-3: Spencer Platt/Getty Images. caption: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie enters the Borough Hall in Fort Lee to apologize to Mayor Mark Sokolich on January 9, 2014 in Fort Lee, New Jersey. According to reports Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly is accused of giving a signal to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge, allegedly as punishment for the Fort Lee, New Jersey mayor not endorsing the Governor during the election. photos 4 & 5: Phil Stilton/Getty Images. caption: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (C) and Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly (R) walk at the scene of a boardwalk fire September 12, 2013 in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. According to reports January 8, 2014, Christie Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly is accused of giving a signal to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey about two weeks before two lanes of the George Washington Bridge, allegedly as punishment for the Fort Lee, New Jersey mayor not endorsing the Governor during the election.)